Health care reform: Reconciliation is a legitimate tactic for Democrats

EPA/SHAWN THEW President Barack Obama delivers opening remarks at a bipartisan meeting to discuss health reform legislation at the Blair House in Washington, DC. President Obama hosted a televised health care summit with Republican and Democratic lawmakers in an effort to craft healthcare overhaul legislation. Republicans in Washington say they are outraged by Democratic plans to pass health care reform using the parliamentary tactic known as reconciliation. They claim it is an end-run around the normal democratic process and warn that Americans will not stand for it.

So let’s take a look. Is this tactic sneaky or underhanded? Is it something out of the ordinary?

The short answer is no. Reconciliation, first used in 1980, was designed to speed certain spending bills through the House and Senate. It bars obstructionist tactics like the Senate filibuster, and allows a majority vote to prevail. Its original intent was to ensure that final spending bills followed the guidelines of congressional budget resolutions.

According to the Congressional Research Service, it has been invoked 22 times and succeeded 19 times.

During the health care summit last week, Sen. Lamar Alexander, a Republican from Tennessee, claimed that reconciliation had never been used for something as large as health care reform. He suggested that Democrats were breaking new ground, and later warned that using reconciliation was a "political kamikaze mission" for Democrats because such heavy-handed tactics would repel the American people.

What do the facts show? Precisely the opposite. Reconciliation was used to pass the George W. Bush tax cuts, which cost roughly twice as much as this health reform over a decade. And remember that Bush didn’t cover the cost of his tax cuts, which remain the single biggest contributor to our national debt.

It was used to pass the Ronald Reagan tax cuts as well, and for the welfare reform pushed by former speaker Newt Gingrich and signed by President Bill Clinton.

With respect, Senator Alexander, those are pretty big moves.

The notion that passing health reform by a majority vote in the House and Senate is somehow sleazy is plainly ridiculous. Republicans have used this tactic more than Democrats have. Their criticism of it now is the definition of hypocrisy.

Democrats can’t back away now. They ran on this issue, they won, and now it’s within their reach. President Obama last week pointed the way to a compromise between the bill the Senate already passed and the one approved by the House. Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Sunday that she believes the House will pass it. Reconciliation gives it a reasonable chance in the Senate as well because Republicans won’t be able to filibuster.

So enough of the Republican huffing and puffing.The bill will bring insurance coverage to 30 million Americans. It makes a start on cost control. And it does not explode the deficit.

Democrats need to pass it now. And reconciliation is a perfectly legitimate way to make that happen.